Ezek 4.1-17 contains a prophecy about the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and a famine that coincided with it. Ezekiel will portray this siege by acting out the scenario using object lessons as commanded by Yehovah.
v 1…Now you, son of man, get yourself a brick (tile), place it before you, and inscribe a city on it, Jerusalem.
v 2…Then lay siege against it (form instruments against it), build a siege wall, raise a ramp, pitch camps, and place battering rams against it all around.
v 3…Then get yourself an iron plate (Chaldeans are like iron and their resolve also) and set it up as an iron wall between you (as the besieger) and the city, and set your face towards it (firm in purpose) so that it is a sign to the house of Israel (that Jerusalem is going to be under siege).
v 4…As for you, lie down on your left side (head to the west symbolizing Samaria and the northern tribes) and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it; you shall bear their iniquity for the number of days that you lie on it (not for atonement but to show what was the cause of their exile).
v 5…For I have assigned you a number of days corresponding to the years of their iniquity, three hundred and ninety days (from the revolt of Rehoboam to the destruction of Jerusalem), thus you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
v 6…When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side (head to the west facing south) and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days, a day for a year. I have set it for you, a day for a year (There are many theories about the significance of this time, but it probably refers to the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign, when Jeremiah began to prophesy, to the end of the reign of Zedekiah and the destruction of Jerusalem).
v 7…Then you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem with your arm bared (as he lays down, his arm ready for action), and prophesy against it (by these actions).
v 8…Now, behold (take note), I will put ropes on you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other, until you have completed the days of your siege (the Jewish people will not escape the siege and and will receive no relief).
v 9…But as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and spelt, put them in one vessel and make them into bread for yourself (a reduced in quality bread); you shall eat it according to the number of the days that you lie on your side three hundred and ninety days (only the three hundred and ninety days are mentioned indicating the exile of all the tribes, not of the siege of Jerusalem that only affected Judah).
v 10…And your food which you eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight (about 8 oz of flour yielding 12 oz of bread); you shall eat it from time to time (into portions over 24 hours).
v 11…And the water you drink will be the sixth part of a hin (less than a pint) by measure; you shall drink it from time to time (into portions over 24 hours).
v 12…And you shall eat it as barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human dung (giving the bread a loathsome taste, by which it is defiled-Ezek 4.13. This was done when wood was scarce).
v 13…And Yehovah said, “Thus shall the sons of Israel eat their bread: unclean among the nations where I shall banish them” (this is symbolic of the defilements they will contract living among the nations).
v 14…But I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I have never been defiled; for from my youth until now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has any unclean meat ever entered my mouth (this is what distinguished Israel from all the other nations).
v 15…Then he said to me, “See, I shall give you cow’s dung in place of the human dung over which you will prepare your bread” (to spare Ezekiel from feeling guilty about it).
v 16…Moreover, he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I am going to break the staff of bread in Jerusalem, and they will eat bread by weight and with anxiety, and drink water by measure and in horror (the same thing that happened to Israel will happen to Judah-rationing),
v 17…because bread and water will be scarce; and they will be appalled (look with want, grieved) with one another, and consume (waste) away in their iniquity (this was a judicial judgment).”
Leave a Reply